What would happen if one were to splice together a complete set of genes to clone a new life form? No, we’re not talking about “Jurassic Park” or even Dolly the cloned sheep. According to CNN today, Harvard scientist George Church suggests this new genetic technology could make it possible to clone a Neanderthal baby. Recently Church has been getting media attention when he audaciously suggested finding a willing surrogate mother to carry out a pregnancy and give birth to a Neanderthal baby. However, this isn't happening anytime soon.
George Church ended up explaining that he was not searching for a surrogate to give birth to a 35,000-year-old, long-extinct Neanderthal baby, but in fact was just speculating the process. Researchers have compared the pros and cons of seeing this to fruition, and have weighed against the risks and the harm that most likely would be done. It is said there would need to be an enormous guarantee of benefit to justify the cloning of this experiment, and rightfully so.
Let us imagine for a moment if a Neanderthal child was actually cloned. According to CNN, some of the possible downsides of trying to clone a Neanderthal include the following: a good chance of killing the baby, cloning a baby that is seriously deformed, producing a baby lacking immunity to infectious diseases and foods that our bodies are now accustomed to, or our inability of knowing the most suitable environment for the baby to thrive and grow to their fullest potential. Obviously many ethical questions come to light. Need we not be reminded of how “Jurassic Park” ended?
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